Rangers reach agreement on Pars debt

05 March 2012 12:47

Rangers' administrators have come to an agreement with Dunfermline to meet their debt to the Fife club in full, Press Association Sport understands.

Dunfermline were last week unable to pay their players their full wages after a cashflow problem sparked by Rangers' inability to pay an £85,000 debt.

The money was owed for tickets sold for Rangers' Clydesdale Bank Premier League clash at East End Park on February 11, three days before the Ibrox club went into administration. It is unclear when the debt will be settled but Dunfermline chairman John Yorkston had already been confident of paying the players in full this week.

Yorkston was at Hampden on Monday with representatives of the other 11 SPL clubs as they discuss rules on financial fair play.

The development came after Rangers players reported at their Murray Park training complex ahead of anticipated news on their futures. Administrators Duff and Phelps had set Monday as the deadline for a decision to be reached on how the club achieve £1million monthly savings.

Administrators continued discussions with manager Ally McCoist and PFA Scotland over the weekend after rejecting the union's offer of "significant" wage deferrals until the end of the season.

Joint administrator David Whitehouse said on Saturday that such an offer was unacceptable as they had to lower costs to make the club attractive to potential buyers, who have been set a deadline of March 16 to make first indicative bids. However, one of the interested parties, former director Paul Murray, has urged administrators to leave the squad intact.

Murray, who hopes to form a consortium to take control of the club from Craig Whyte, said he did not know how the administrators had reached their savings target, which they have stated as £4.5million until the end of the season.

Murray told the Daily Record: "But if I'm given a choice of plugging that gap by the deferrals the players are offering or by cuts then I would choose deferrals. If we are looking at replacing another eight, nine or 10 players we could be looking at a need to come up with an extra £20-30million.

"But the deferral number needed to plug the gap is £4.3million. It seems obvious what is in the best interests of the club."